I’m SO EXCITED for you all to read this one! In light of the #authorstats threads that were going around twitter, let me give you some insight in how Extraction came to be:

2008 – Draft 1: Wrote the very first draft of this novel with my partner, Jon, waaaayyyyy back. Essentially, the bones of this book is how I learned to write fiction.

2011 – Draft 2: Then Jon was like “Ugh, I don’t want to do this anymore, you take it and run with it.” And I did. And I drastically rewrote it.

Changed the main character and cut out about 50k worth of text (including a whole host of secondary characters)

Redid the worldbuilding from the ground up

2014 – Draft 3: I pulled the book back out of the digital drawer and reread it. It was…full of dudes. Start to finish, just dude central. Changed a bunch of characters to women. Tinkered with it. Put it down. Tinkered with it some more. Realized it was more than one book.

Got REALLY EXCITED about the second book. Started writing that instead of polishing up that first books. Oops, I got distracted.

I had edits of my own, anyway, since in drafting books 2 and 3 of the series there were consistency changes that needed to be worked into Extraction. This was supposed to be the polish & finesse last pass draft.

2016 – Draft 5: OH BUT WAIT my publisher folded. You know, it happens. So, then, the rights were mine and it was time to find a new home for the book.

I pulled out the book again. Tweaked it again. Contracted with my cover artist (C Bedford). And here we are!

The path to publication is as weird and circuitous as any individual book’s plot. And then the story is out there, and it’s not the author’s any more. When the books are out there, they belong to the readers. I’m thrilled to release Extraction into the wild, and to let it find a home in someone else’s heart.

Rethnali, a newly-minted captain in the long-standing and brutal elvish rebellion, wants to do more than keep her soldiers alive. She wants to turn the tide of the war for her people. When her old captain and mentor, Li, shows up at her camp with orders to go deep into enemy territory, she may have the opportunity to do just that.

But as Rethnali’s mission unfolds, she realizes that she is just a pawn in a larger game. While she tries to protect her soldiers, she is forced to decide the course of her future and the future of the elvish rebellion itself. Extraction is a story of lives shaped by hard choices and unforeseen consequences.

EXTRACTION will be available on Amazon in ebook and paperback formats on November 21st, 2017, and will be up for pre-order soon! Watch this space, or sign up for my newsletter for an alert to get information about pre-orders! If you want the book even sooner than that, my Patreon subscribers will get an early bird release of the book!

Guess what–the second edition of Resistance is out, but you can get your copy for free!

The second edition of Resistance, which has a beautiful new cover by C. Bedford and additional short fiction related to the novel, is now available for purchase on Amazon. The ebook is available now, and the paperback will be available within a week.

But! Two entrants in the giveway will win their choice of a free ebook or paperba/ck. Enter now for your chance to win! The giveaway will be open to entrants until Sunday, 8/27/2017. Winners will be announced on Monday, 8/28/2017.

I am so excited to show you the new cover C. Bedford has created for Resistance! Isn’t is lovely? I love every damn thing about it! She has captured so many awesome little details here–Rivna’s tattoos, Shandolin’s neck wounds, the messy back alley in the City.

Which brings me to my next point. Have you read Resistance? Were you thinking about it, but then were like ‘oh well, shit, now it’s out of print’? Guess what! I’m re-releasing it through the Kraken Collective!

The formal re-release of the second edition will go live August 15. But Patreon subscribers at the $4 level (Word Hoarder) will get an ebook sent to them next Sunday!

Subscribers at the $6 level (Completionist) will get both the ebook next Sunday and will have a signed copy of the second edition print book sent to them as soon as that’s available (on or around August 15).

The second edition has minor changes to the text and includes a small selection of additional short fiction related to the novel. I hope you enjoy it!

Now that the Ariah relaunch has happened, I thought it might be cool to walk you through what that looked like, exactly, in case any of you out there need similar info/skills in the future times.

What Happened When I Heard My Press Was Going UnderOh, you know. Irritation. Resignation. Worry. But it’s the new normal, right? You can’t let yourself dwell on it too much. I got the rights reversion language from them, and filed it away. Ariah (and the other books I had under contract with them) was mine again.

And that felt a bit like freedom, honestly. Terrifying, exhilarating freedom.

Deciding What To Do NextI went into that a little here. The options were pretty clear-cut:

find a press willing to reprint Ariah

create a press and reprint Ariah

self-publish Ariah

Ultimately, I went with option 3, for now, because of timing and resources. Judging by word of mouth and some of the few stats I have at my disposal, there is some momentum and demand for Ariah out there currently. I was afraid if the book disappeared altogether that the word of mouth would dry up, the momentum would turn to stillness, and Ariah would entirely lose the audience its found. It felt, and still feels, important to keep the book out there. It is as entirely legitimate as it will ever be–publishing through a press is not going to make that more or less true–and the text has already been copy edited.

Ariah’s Second Edition – Nuts And BoltsOk, with that decision made, I started sketching out tasks to make it happen:

Cover – I have always loved the cover art the press secured for Ariah, so when they offered to let me purchase it, I jumped at the chance. Done.

Redo Digital File – I took the epub file the press gave me for promotion purposes when the book initially launched, and plopped it into Sigil. Sigil is a free program that I use to edit and manipulate epub files until they are *exactly* how I want them.

Change Front and Back Matter – I needed to make changes, definitely, to the copyright page. This is a second edition, since the publisher has changed. I took out some of the language my press had in the copyright page and added some other language. I reconfigured the Table of Contents. I removed some of the back matter and added other back matter, and made the links live.

Tweak Book Design – In Sigil, I tweaked some of the chapter titles and section headings to be more my aesthetic.

Upload to Kindle – When the Sigil file was done, I uploaded it to a different program, Calibre. In calibre, you can add a cover image. You can also convert the epub to other formats (like mobi). I took the newly created mobi file and uploaded it to Kindle. Bam: that’s your ebook.

Redo Print File – Also in Calibre, I converted the epub to a rtf file. I made whatever book design choices I wanted in Word–important note: you have to set paper size to 6×9 and set mirror margins to match the default CreateSpace size. I found this part to be extremely, weirdly, super fun. Then, I exported the word doc as a PDF, which I uploaded to CreateSpace.

Upload to CreateSpace – You’ll need to go through CreateSpace’s entire finicky checklist, and you’ll need to go through the cover design process there. This was…less fun, but very thorough. Once it’s all done, and reviewed, then you have a print-on-demand paperback!

Update Amazon Author Page – Go to AuthorCentral and add the new versions of the ebook and paperback to your bibliography. I had to add all the extra shizz to their pages (editorial reviews, about the author, etc).

I couldn’t get Amazon to link the new editions to the old editions, so the current reviews are trapped forever on the old edition’s page. *sad trombone*

although I have found a couple of ways to inquire about this (check out this and this if you wind up with similar issues). So hopefully this will be resolved soon!

Update Goodreads – Add the new ebook and paperback as new editions to your book’s goodreads page. If you do this, then your reviews from the old editions will carry over like magic.

If you run into trouble with that, the Goodreads librarian group is full of angels.

What’s Next?The big question is What To Do With Those Other Books Zharmae Had Under Contract. I’ve shopped them around a little, but not much. But honestly, I don’t really know what’s next.

I do know it will work out. And I’ll be around. And it’ll be great! Stay tuned.

take my book and go quietly into the night, shopping it around as a possible reprint

relaunch it myself immediately

I’ve decided to do both things. I’ve put a couple of feelers out to people who might be interested in reprinting Ariah–people with resources and reach I don’t have alone–but in the meantime, this little book has grown legs!

There are readers who would like to buy it in the interim, in both ebook and paperbook formats, and it feels not super cool to keep Ariah out of circulation just because when it takes not a terrible amount of effort to put it back in circulation.

So: Ariah is available, as a second edition, via Amazon in both print and digital formats. One day there might be yet a third edition, if any of those feelers pan out, but maybe not, so what is there to lose really?

Psst – there is a giveaway happening right now through my newsletter. You can sign up for the newsletter mailing list here, if you haven’t already, and enter the giveaway here.

The second edition has no story or grammatical changes in the text compared to the first edition. Really, the only change is that the first edition was published by Zharmae, and this edition is published by me, and thus they have different ISBNs. I did take the opportunity to make some slight differences to layout and book design, but again, the book does not have any additional content, so if you already have a copy of Ariah, I can’t really tell you in good conscience to pick up a copy of the second edition (unless you’re like OMG I MUST SUPPORT B IN EVERYTHING THEY DO in which case…thank you! You’re very sweet and encouraging!!).

The open question is what this means for me. In the short term, rights to Ariah and the not-yet-published A Tale of Rebellion series have reverted back to me. I am without an agent. So, basically, I have books in hand and many options.

The idea of getting back out there and subbing all over again is fearsome, but it’s also invigorating. Fresh starts are…well, shit, they are fresh if nothing else. This news comes at a time of a lot of general transitions in my life,* and while not necessarily unwelcome, it is has given me pause. It’s a moment to slow down for a second and figure out what I want and don’t want in my writing life.

In any case, stay tuned. I’m not going anywhere. That much I know for sure.

*Day job transitions, kiddo just started kindergarten, just a whole lot of stuff flipping over at once. Things are hectic.

You know, whenever people ask me what motivates me to keep writing, I tell them it’s curiosity, not external validation. But, hey, the occasional bit of external validation is certainly welcome!

When I wrote Ariah, I couldn’t imagine that it would get published, much less win an award! So, many thanks to the Bi Writers Association for this. It means a great deal to me.

Thanks also to my partners, Jon and Sam, and my ex, Hunter, who slogged through many iterations of Ariah. Without them pushing me, this book never would have seen the light of day. I’d also like to thank my editors, Sarah Bangs and Carrie Hemler, for the sharp insights that made this book as good as it could possibly be.

AND MANY, MANY CONGRATULATIONS TO THE OTHER WINNERS AND NOMINEES! Seriously, what an amazing, talented bunch.

Ok, so do you remember this very exciting news? About how in 2017 I’ll have another set of Aerdhverse books coming out with the Zharmae Publishing Press? Let me refresh your memory:

About A Tale of Rebellion
The humans of Elothnin went west, hungry for wheat and space, but the elves were already there. When the humans burned the elves’ homes, the elves rebelled. For forty long years the rebellion smoldered, but the elves have been beaten back into the gnarled forest, forced to rely on guerrilla tactics and strange bedfellows.

Rethnali has only ever known the rebellion. Born and bred to it, raised by a great elvish general and now a captain herself, Rethnali’s whole life is ruthlessness and strategy. Over the course of four books, Rethnali’s will is tested. Some friendships fray and tatter; surprising new ones blossom. She puts herself and her soldiers in danger over and over again, all in the name of winning back the lands stolen from her people. Sacrifice–what will she sacrifice to see this rebellion through to its end? And who will she be once all those sacrifices have been made?

Exciting, right? So, Book 1 (titled Extraction) is already in edits. I’ve got first drafts of the second and third books done. The final book is outlined. I’m using Camp NaNo reread and revised the second book in the series (The Incoming Tide). It sorely needs it. Here’s some of the things I’m planning to work on this month:

Pronouns. Several characters have shifted genders over the course of the edits, and this draft has to be brought up to speed. I have to hunt and peck and correct the pronouns, which is a kind of penance for getting their genders wrong in the first place.

Pacing. In the current draft, time jumps in weird twitchy ways. Action is glossed over where it should be played out. I’m noting all these weird hitches for the revision stage.

Consistency: Tracking all the character names, the place names, the names of the pirate ships. I have a running tally of all the votes taken and the shifting alliances.

Changes: At least one character I knew had to die is going to live after all. So that changes things. I’m wondering if someone else is going to surprise!die. Gotta keep track of all these notes in the margins.

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Pronouns: they/them/their. B R Sanders is a white, genderqueer writer who lives and works in Denver, CO, with their family and two cats. B writes about queer elves, mostly, as featured in their two novels, the award-winning ARIAH and their debut novel RESISTANCE, both of which are set in the same universe. They love drinking coffee and sleeping, but alas, drinking coffee makes it hard to sleep. Stay in touch with B on twitter (@B_R_Sanders) or with their newsletter: http://eepurl.com/bgYFjf